Environment

The growing degradation of the environment in Central America and the Caribbean presents great challenges for environmental management both in urban and rural areas. ESA Consultores has ample capacity and experience in environmental studies for the diagnosis and recommendation of solutions. Using multi-disciplinary teams, we have carried out environmental evaluations and audits, viability studies and evaluations of environmental impact, participatory ecological evaluations and management plan development for protected areas. All of our environmental studies deal with aspects of the physical-natural environment (geology, soils, hydrology, hydrogeology, limnology, flora, fauna, natural protected areas, and natural chaotic phenomena). They also include an in-depth study of the socioeconomic and cultural environment, including the roles governmental and non-governmental organizations in the communities in question, institutional aspects, socioeconomic profiles, social participation, economic activities, infrastructure, road system, environmental cleanups, land registry and regulation, basic services, patrimonial sites, and historic sites that have artistic and cultural value. These are finally complemented by an analysis and study of all the sector and specialized laws (national and/or international, as the case may be) that are integrated and coherent, and that allow the most effective and expedient management of the environment.

Using this approach, ESA Consultores has carried out environmental impact evaluations for some of the most important projects proposed in recent years in Honduras, including: The sewer system of Puerto Cortés (IDB); the low-income housing project Vida Nueva in Cofradía San Pedro Sula (Vida Nueva Foundation); the Los Llanitos hydroelectric project (with Staatkraft, Norway); the San Juan Hydroelectric Project (with Unión FENOSA, Spain); the municipal electricity system of Utila (with the Tenessee Valley Infrastructure Group) and the proposedTourist Hotel Complex of Club Marbella at Tela Bay.

ESA Consultores has also contributed to the development of environmental regulation in Honduras. In 1994, financed by USAID, we carried out the first systematic study of the industrial effluents in the city of San Pedro Sula, and developed a proposed set of norms. In the field of environmental audits, we have completed studies for the African palm plantations and processing factories of the Jaremar group. In river basin management, we worked with Staakraft (Norway) in preparing the first stage of the management plan for the Sula Valley Executive Commission in 2000, and were advisors in the River Basin Management for the Guayape Project, Olancho (Canadian Cooperation). In the area of environmental policies and studies, ESA Consultores prepared the Honduran Environmental Profile of 1999 for the Ministry of Natural Resources SERNA and a study on forest policy for the Central American Advisory Body on Forest and Protected Area Policy.